Anyone Else Do This Security Sticker Trick?

So my wife the other day sent me a text that looked something like this:

“Hey honey! Just picked up a bunch of security stickers off Amazon… gonna put them all over our new house so we don’t have to spend $200 on a security system!”

To which I replied,

“Lololololol”

And then quickly polled my to see if this was “a thing,” haha…

And as you can see from the # of responses there, apparently it is! Who knew?? (Besides everyone who responded? ;))

Here were some of my favorite replies:

It’s a thing, but not complete till you put the yard signs near windows and doors as well 👌🏼 –

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Our old landlord made us keep a sign in our window that said, “This property is monitored by the neighborhood watch.” There was no neighborhood watch.
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My public library had security gates that weren’t connected to anything for about 5 years and found that the rate of stolen items was about the same as when they were paying for security… –

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There are people that put up fake cameras. They were for sale here at feilds and the dollar store last fall. –

The consensus was that pretty much having a sticker or lawn sign saying you have security is just as good as having a security system to ward off criminals…

And people were throwing out all kinds of stats like they were “90%” or “99%” effective, and quoting sources such as Freakonomics et al.

I tried to do my own sleuthing online, but the first 99 results came from SECURITY COMPANIES themselves, and not shockingly they did not recommend trying it (although the # of posts that came up surely re-emphasizes just how popular this idea is ;)).

But not everyone was convinced:

If they’re the generic ones you get off Amazon a legit thief can spot those from the van at 8 miles an hour :) –

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The psychology of those stickers work better for cars if they’re in a parking garage or something because of the uncertainty of when the owner comes back. Since your house is always where it is, the burglar has more time to case it out if you have a sched and can always come back –

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“If you ever get a system don’t put their system stickers up. Intruders google the sys admin on the companies you use prior to breaking in.” –

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Not sure if stickers give you a break on home insurance premium though.
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So are these stickers helpful?? Is it safe?? Should you do it??

Can’t tell you on that, but what I can tell you is that we’ll be rocking them at our new house because we have yet to ever pick up any security systems before, haha… And it has to be better than nothing, right?? So long as we got the non-fake looking ones? (Or maybe it’s better to ask a friend to spare a real one, unless everyone else is gaming the system too?! :))

We’re fortunate to never have had a break in so far, so never felt the need to pick a system up, however maybe with kids now and blog stalkers out there it’s worth looking into a bit…

And of course, the day we do get burglarized I’ll be sure to come back and update this post right away, haha… (knocks on 10,000 pieces of wood…)

Reminds me of a neighbor though who once told me that “it’s your own fault if someone breaks in to get your stuff” because “you shouldn’t have owned expensive stuff to begin with!”

It took me by surprise and couldn’t immediately tell if I was offended or if I agreed at the time (here’s the link to the full conversation to put it in context) but what I did come away with was that for the first time in my life I wasn’t *attached* to any of my possessions anymore. Which was incredibly liberating! And outside of my laptop and , there’s honestly nothing much a burglar would even want from our house, haha…

Of course, I’d be annoyed that someone broke into our space and wouldn’t want to deal with it all, but the fact someone would stoop to this level means they’re in much more need of this stuff than I am anyways. And in which case, you can only be so mad. How lucky are we to even have all this stuff to begin with??

But not trying to get all righteous up in here, haha…

Point is – stuff is stuff, and if you can find ways to protect it more through hacks and stickers, great, but it’s not the end of the world if you do get robbed either :) Provided everyone is safe, of course – especially our angelic children!

Lemme know if you do any of this stuff though, or if you have secret hacks of your own you don’t mind divulging with your fellow budgeters… And let’s just pretend no criminals are reading this so they’re not onto our tricks, cool?

I’ll leave you with one more house idea, which comes with a nice fuzzy prize as well:

A dog’s water bowl outside is a pretty good deterrent too. –

Happy savings! :)

Anyone Else Do This Security Sticker Trick? was last modified: February 22nd, 2018 by J. Money

I can relate to that comment about owning/not owning expensive stuff. I live in a triplex building. While I was away on vacation for a couple weeks two years ago, every unit in the building was broken into. Electronics were stolen from the other two units, but I had my laptop with me and there wasn’t much else of value in my unit. So the only thing that was stolen from my unit was a backpack, presumably used to carry away the electronics from the other two units. I had felt violated, but I’m glad I didn’t lose much.

I have a step brother who is a cop and put one of the stickers he gave my kids in the back window of my car, my hope is if I ever get pulled over it might get me out of a ticket. Fortunately I haven’t been pulled over yet.

Did your wife just decide this on her own or did she read about it? It’s a great life hack. My approach has been to have the worst house in a nice neighborhood. I figure a robber will target all the fancy houses before even giving mine a second look.

Haha yes!!! One of my dreams is to own a super rundown southern mansion that looks un-inhabited, but then when you walk in it’s super fancy and elegant and was just a big ruse from the outside haha…. Like a big secret lair ;) I haven’t figured out how to get Amazon packages to it without being found out, but that’s the least of the barriers at the moment, haha…

I know people like this. Sort of gritty chicago neighborhood. Old victorian with peeling paint. Go inside and you have beautiful hand finished wood carpentry and top-of-line kitchen. Couple is a cardiologist and a Harvard grad who decided to do carpentry:-)

I would use them, but choose a valid one from a local company or something. Fake surveillance is a good idea too in my opinion. Maybe I am conservative but do you know what do we use? The last option, a dog’s water bowl, just with a little difference, according to my experience it is more effective when you use it combined with a dog. This works for us. I know they could be a weak point too, but if you want to advance security (and you have the money) keep a pack of them. There will be no burglar who would handle 6 dogs same time. I heard that keeping alligators works too, but much harder to handle. ;)

You said the biggest truth, however. If someone would break into my house the biggest thing he could steal is our peace of mind. Thanks for sharing!

What! Omg. I’m mentioned in a J$ article! All those hours on are verrry productive :P! Haha this is seriously very freakonomics like. I still stand by it! Car alarms, yes, house ones no. But I would hope the world is a better place where people don’t break in one day:).

I used to know someone who owned a clothing store which had prominent security cameras in each room. After they mentioned they saw someone wearing a pair of shoes that were definitely stolen from them, I asked about the cameras. Turns out they were just nailed to the wall and weren’t actually recording anything!

I recall also reading about how people are less likely to commit crimes if there is a picture of a pair of eyes or a mirror in view – it makes us feel watched. A supermarket near me recently put mirrors above the self-checkouts and I expect that’s why.

Haha! Your wife is on to something! Yes, it is very much a thing; you can buy the ‘dummy’ burglar alarm outside signage/casing on its own, in some places. I’ve been burgled twice as a student and twice since (Big City Life?!) and on all four occasions they took NOTHING! I was quite offended, to begin with, until the laughter took over! They clearly had no taste for the (non-flashy) Finer Things in Life!

I’ve thought about putting up “beware of dog” signs (we don’t have a dog) but have never done it. We do have a functioning security system and have a yard sign and stickers on a few doors. We’ve never had issues with break ins, but it makes me feel a little safer, especially when I’m not there and my wife and kids are home without me. The interesting thing to me is that the previous owners of the house used the alarm when they were away (they traveled a lot), but never when they were home. We use it when we’re home and not when we’re away, unless it’s overnight. The difference is they used the alarm to protect their nice stuff. We use it to protect ourselves and we don’t have a lot of expensive stuff.

Putting up a sign that a guard dog lives there is a pretty good ideal. Though my wife use to have a timer plug and have a few lights in our house plugged into it. The timer automatically switches on at night. This gives the impression that there are people home.

We just installed a programmable light switch for our front porch lights (it has some fancy calendar tracking, so it adjusts for earlier darkness in the winter & daylight savings time, with the added bonus that the lights don’t flick on/off every day at the exact same time). It is nice to come home and the house is lit up, also makes it look like someone is home. And we do add the time plugs to inside lights for when we are actually away. We do need to update our stickers/yard sign, they are getting awfully faded :)

We had someone randomly come by our house once and give my wife a fake security system yard sign… she was out working on the flower bed. Told me about it when I got home. Sounded super sketchy so I threw it away… Since then we’ve invested in an 8 camera outdoor system and we love it! I keep the feed up at work via wifi on an old cell phone – one less thing to worry about!

We had a burglar alarm sign in our yard left by the prior owners at our previous home. With 4 dogs we decided not to pay $60 a month for the service. An alarm is only as good as the police responding to it. In our city it took cops 45 minutes to respond to an alarm. They were too busy dealing with shootings & wrecks. Don’t know if our sign helped but several of our neighbors had break ins. One had nothing of value & we presume the thieves got mad at that so they trashed her place. Others had electronics/jewelry stolen despite having an active neighborhood watch. We moved to a smaller very safe town now & only have 2 dogs but they are barkers. Like others here, we have little of value & most everything is replaceable. Also if you do have valuables, thieves usually skip kitchens so that’s a good place to hide stuff. They tend to target bedrooms for jewelry, guns, etc. My aunt had a break in. They took jewelry in her bedroom but there was nothing amiss in her kitchen where her valuable sterling silverware was. I think the stickers are a good low cost idea.

I can’t take full credit for the dog’s water bowl trick, although we do have one outside because we do have two dogs. I heard it or read it from a so-called security expert sometime ago. I’m pretty sure if I was looking to get into a house and I wasn’t sure if there was a dog inside I might second guess myself. Think Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. :)

I’ve seen in writing before a quote that says something like : Whatever you are afraid to lose is what really owns you. I guess that’s true in that its a reflection of a persons priorities.

Personally I feel like a security system is an advertisement that you have valuable stuff. Once I guy came to the door trying to sell me ADT. To which I replied, nah I don’t need it, that’s why I overpaid to live in this area. Honestly, I think the greatest deterrent is that I have one of the worst houses in a neighborhood full of McMansions (my house was built 10 years before the Migration of giant houses to this area, so I do not have one of those).

I personally have an issue with fear (or really anything external) dictating my behavior, I feel like once you let anything other than self reflection dictate to you then you lose freedom and have already assumed the role of victim. Truly, I think to some degree everyone here has an issue of letting this world dictate their behavior, otherwise we would all be driving Ford Raptors and Tesla Model S P100Ds.

In reality, I probably think too much about this kind of stuff… I mean its just a couple of cheap stickers…

I figure its better than just another “Yes, I couldn’t possibly agree more” comment.

I also have an English Mastiff, I feel like a dog the size of a small human is pretty deterrent. She’s a female but pretty tall (she can put her head all the way on the counter) and weighs in the mid 100s. Also, that bark, if you aren’t used to it…it can be off putting.

My rule of thumb is that we don’t have much we can’t live without if someone were to steal it. Living frugally, we’re not as attractive as the next house I hope. Also, we don’t highlight items in easy visibility.

Plus, two small dogs are great deterrents to any thief or even door-to-door salesman ;) I prefer the comfort of pets as a little line of security, as you can see most people even with cameras post videos of thieve breaking in any way. Plus, there has been research that most robbers will skip the house with dogs and move on to an easier target. The goal is to make sure you’re not an easy target. Stickers sound like a great idea, but if you’re leaving things in easy access or plan sight, they’ll break in any way.

My dad always said locks are for honest people, if someone wants to get in, they’ll get in regardless.

I had no idea you could buy fake stickers off Amazon! We do have one of those yard signs up out front, it was there when we moved in and figured there’s no harm in keeping it.
Our two pups are our security system. When we’re out they sleep in the front window and can look pretty threatening if someone approaches.

We were robbed–I mean cleaned out once. They spent hours, shopped our closets, took our bedding (apparently to scoop up all their loot in), Mr.’s underwear, jewelry, 2 computers, cameras, stereo etc. The cop told us their MO was to steal a car, pull it into the garage and then go to town. Even though I didn’t think we had much of monetary value, apparently we did.

Here’s what I learned:

Look around your street and make sure your home isn’t the easiest one to get into. After the break in, I realized almost every other home had security doors. I didn’t sleep in my home until ours were installed.

But most important, don’t share information about your schedule or your life with random strangers. I’m pretty sure I know who broke in–they came by a couple weeks earlier trying to sell me something. They were so chatty and friendly! I basically told them we both work all day and are never home. DOH! They came back months later and I told them our Mother in Law lived with us.

Arriving home to a kicked in front door, open garage and missing cats was among the most traumatic things I’ve experienced. I never felt comfortable driving up to that home again, it was always in the back of my mind. So I say put those stickers on, it can’t hurt. But more important, keep your schedule to yourself.

I totally agree with you. Don’t share your schedule & personal info. We had several rental homes in our old neighborhood so people moving in & out all the time. One of these “neighbors” was arrested for check fraud. We always told these neighbors we had nothing of value (true!) just in case. When strangers came to the door my dogs were always barking. I looked thru the window, never opened the door, & shouted “my 4 dogs bite, sorry I can’t open the door”. Poof all gone! One time a suspicious salesman caught me raking. He had a clip board asking questions. Before he could try to sell something I lied, told him my husband was a cop & we were renting & the owners lived out of state. He heard my dogs inside barking & I told him I couldn’t let them out in the yard since they bite. I saw him cross our address off his list! He said he was from Sears but when I called, Sears said they never send people door to door. I think this guy was casing the neighborhood. Best to keep personal stuff to yourself & also be careful what you post on social media. Don’t announce you’re going on vacation for 2 weeks. It’s an open invite for thieves to visit your home while you’re gone.

Ack – love all your advices!!! But sorry you still had to deal with that Liz, huge nightmare :( And that’s really the worst of it all – fearing for safety more than anything else :( A few times in our old place our doorbell would ring at like 1 or 2 in the morning and would freak us the hell out every time… I tried to convince myself they were just idiot teenagers, but you really never know? I never opened and walked out in either case though – just sat by the windows trying to figure it out and then wasted hours of precious sleep :(

This happened to our neighbors a few years ago. Someone rang their doorbell 3AM. They called 911 but by the time police arrived, the offender was gone. They freaked out & have lit up a tree in their front yard ever since. No other incidents since then. So sorry for your property losses, Liz, most of all, your loss of security. Hopefully the new doors are giving you peace of mind, or perhaps you’ve moved since then?

Debbie, you are so smart and so right about not giving out your info to people.

On answering random doorbell rings and knocks, we generally don’t answer the door if we’re not expecting anyone. I read an article years ago about a woman answering a knock at the door in the middle of the day, and the people on the other side busted in her house and robbed her blind IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. I haven’t answered for random visitors ever since.

I have a fake camera outside and a real security camera inside. There was no point in putting a real one outside if thieves can just break it, but the one inside the house can’t be reached until people are far into the house and their faces are on the internet. Ours is streamed online so even if they destroyed that one, I would have the video. There’s plenty of not-too-expensive ones like Nest.

I did consider using fake stickers, and still consider it, but I wouldn’t buy generic ones as they would be easy to recognize. I thought of making a few using real security companies name.

There’s a lot of other ways to discourage thieves, like timed lights, leaving the TV on or the radio, making sure the outside house lights are on, secure door frames and door stoppers, windows films to make them harder to break, etc.

My wife and I have a few musical instruments, probably worth $15k all together. Our computers are ancient and most of our ‘stuff’ is either in the cloud or on the NAS in the basement next to the network hub. Maybe if someone broke in they’d get some heavy Amish furniture? Um, a nice Bosch dishwasher? …Slobbered on by our doggo?

I’d miss the guitars and horns, but that’s what homeowners’ insurance is for. It’s great not to be held hostage by our possessions!

Incidental: the best ‘alarm’ may be a good relationship with the neighbors. So many on our block work from home — if a strange car is parked in someone’s driveway, I have no doubt there’d be text messages flying back and forth.

I’ll confess to doing this. Way cheaper than a real security system and so far so good (14 years at current address and unscathed after probably a half dozen neighborhood-wide burglary sprees ).

Does it work? Who knows. I figure an expert would be in and out before a security system would even matter, stickers, alarm, etc or not. An amateur (mostly what we get around here – last couple of crews were teenagers) might be deterred.

My parents actually have a self-monitored security system and put up those stickers too. And they bought a BEWARE OF DOG sign and placed it prominently at the main rear entrance. So far they haven’t been hit (and they’ve been in that house 30 years now!).

An even more effective security system is bright motion activated lights. I installed one of those on each side of the house. Put a nice bright energy efficient LED bulb in each and it’s an amazing flood of light if someone approached either side door or tries to walk behind the house, or if they walk near our van. BOOM! The lights go on and hopefully the crooks decide to bug someone else with poor illumination.

It’s like surviving an encounter with a bear – you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friends. Same applies to home security. Just make your house less convenient to break into and hopefully the crooks will go somewhere else.

Ha, I never thought of pretending! We literally just purchased a system from Simplisafe that’s coming in today. I’m going on a trip to Ireland and part of the “deal” with my wife was to get an alarm system for break ins. We have three young kids and break ins/kidnapping is one of her worst fears. It cost a little over $500 including the Amex $100 off deal, but I felt like $500 is better than the professional installation and a small price for my wife’s peace of mind.

I’m thinking about a Simplisafe system when we move into a house. I think a Beware of dog sign would be more effective than a fake security sign. Probably would work even better if there is a fake camera too.

As a kid my parents had a security system that was self contained installed. After about a year they shut it off except the lights for the motion censors and the stickers. For better or worse no robberies.

I’ve totally done this before! I also had a roommate who would put “I support police”-style stickers on her car to deter car theft. I can’t say if it worked, but her car never was broken into and mine was, so maybe there’s something there?

I used to have one of those too – after donating to one of their funds once :) I always thought it was for not getting speeding tickets, but even better if it did double duty! And I actually never did get any tickets with it on, but sure did after it peeled off – hah!

We had a Security Service for a while (just until we moved our home based biz into an office) then turned it off but kept the signs up and took them to every other house we’ve been in since then.
Guess it worked – never been broken into yet, knock on wood (or whatever) . . .

We don’t have stickers but we have a Fake tv that we use when we leave town. We pair it with a radio and put them on a timer. I don’t answer the door if it’s someone I don’t know, and I case the neighborhood for unfamiliar cars and people. I know my neighbors and they know me. A cop told us once that bad guys hate light, so we have lots of lights and motion sensors for night time. Since I’m home with a bunch of little kids I feel like my security is my no. 1 priority. I’m sorry for those that have had break ins, nothing is worse than that loss of security we take for granted.

We’re planning to do this do too with the stickers and the signs when we buy a home. I know lots of people who do it and I think it makes potential burglars second guess of trying to break in. As a backup, we also plan to get those security cameras from Costco where you can save the video footage on the cloud and watch the live feed from your phone and computer.

We’ve never tried fake stickers, but some of our friends have fake cameras outside. They haven’t had any break-ins so I guess they’re working.

We have a monitored security system, but like Marc said, it’s for our protection, rather than protecting our stuff. We also have a Lab mix that barks at anything she finds “off,” so that helps, too lol.

Our system is only about $30/month because we use a local company, rather than one of the nationwide ones. They’ve been super responsive every time I’ve set the alarm off. :) Fortunately, we haven’t had occasion to test the police’s responsiveness.

Like alot of things in life, this is all about perspective. How things appears is just important as how things really are. By putting up sticker is shows that you have security, which should be enough deterant for most crimes.

After reading this I was thinking back to my childhood. I never really thought about it but we had a security system sticker in our window and we definitely never had a security system in my 15 years living on our house. This is interesting.

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I, J. Money, only claim the thoughts from my head. I am not a banker, CPA, money manager or anything else of that sort. Please seek a professional for any "real" advice. More info: privacy & disclosure page